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Why It Makes Sense to Be a Scientific Realist Than an Instrumentalist

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Why It Makes Sense to Be a Scientific Realist Than an Instrumentalist KRITIKE VOLUME FOURTEEN NUMBER ONE (JUNE 2020) 179–197 Article Argument from Psychological Difference: Why It Makes Sense to be a Scientific Realist than an Instrumentalist Vida Mia S. Valverde Abstract: This paper contends that psychological factors of cognition and affect come into play in determining which philosophical framework, scientific realism (SR) or instrumentalism, makes more sense in the practice of science through history. The proposed Argument from Psychological Difference (APD) asserts that the scientific realist has a stronger impetus than the instrumentalist to pursue science that is anchored in existing underlying reality and cognizant of how the human person practices such science. The APD is threshed out in recognizing transcendence as manifested through history; in affirming the human quest for truth and certainty; in the stand that is taken in history when the science is more mature and certain. SR is especially made more comprehensive and coherent when it considers the interplay of the observable and unobservable aspects of reality and of how the human person is in the scheme of things. Scientific realism is the more superior stance compared to instrumentalism because, ultimately, it makes more meaningful sense by being grounded in existing material reality that has the power to move us rather than in convenient fictions that operate on utility. Keywords: cognition, scientific realism, instrumentalism, psychological difference Scientific Realism, Instrumentalism, and Methodological Indifference here is a contention that there is no need for choosing scientific realism (SR) or instrumentalism as a philosophical framework with regards to T reality. Devitt defines his doctrine of SR as: “Most of the essential unobservables of well-established current scientific theories exist mind © 2020 Vida Mia S. Valverde https://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_26/valverde_june2020.pdf ISSN 1908-7330 180 ARGUMENT FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE independently.”1 On the other hand, instrumentalism, which is a form of antirealism, puts forth that scientific theories and their posited unobservables are instruments for predicting observable phenomena.2 One philosophical framework, scientific realism, could just as well serve as an alternative to the other, instrumentalism. If we accept that science aims to provide true explanatory accounts of the phenomena as a realist description, the instrumentalist’s description would be the same except that empirical adequacy would substitute for truth. We then believe in the empirical adequacy of predictively successful theories, not in their truth. So if the realist says that science provides true explanatory accounts, the instrumentalist would say that science provides empirically adequate accounts. It has thus been contended that the practice of science shows no distinction at all between a realist outlook and an instrumentalist one. A realist explanation of a scientific practice may be turned into an instrumentalist explanation. There are no aspects of scientific practice that a realist can explain and an instrumentalist could not. Robin Findlay Hendry, however, argues that the epistemic stance of the scientist, whether realist or instrumentalist, colors her practice.3 Hendry refers to a historiographical intuition that suggests that realism or instrumentalism influences what practices scientists employ but Arthur Fine and André Kukla propound that realism and instrumentalism are indifferent to the practice of science.4 There is explanatory indifference which implies that for every realist explanation of the success of a scientific practice there is also an instrumentalist explanation of its success. There is the motivational indifference which implies that for every realist reconstruction of a scientific practice there is also an instrumentalist reconstruction. In the former, the phenomena to be explained involve the success of scientific theories. In the latter, the phenomena to be explained are the scientific practices themselves. These two types of indifference stem from Fine’s metatheorem to support his claim that arguments based on the ability of scientific realism to explain certain aspects of scientific practice do not provide support for realism to be a better stance against instrumentalism: if the phenomena to be 1 Michael Devitt, “Scientific Realism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy, ed. by Michael Smith and Frank Jackson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 769. 2 Michael Gardner, “Realism and Instrumentalism in Pre-Newtonian Astronomy,” in Testing Scientific Theories, ed. by John Earman (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1983), 238. 3 See Robin Findlay Hendry, “Are Realism and Instrumentalism Methodologically Different?” in Philosophy of Science, 68:3 (Supplement, 2001), S25–S37. 4 See Arthur Fine, “Unnatural Attitudes: Realist and Instrumentalist Attachments to Science,” in Mind, 96 (1986), 149–179; André Kukla, Studies in Scientific Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). © 2020 Vida Mia S. Valverde https://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_26/valverde_june2020.pdf ISSN 1908-7330 V. VALVERDE 181 explained are not realist-laden, then to every good realist explanation there corresponds a better instrumentalist one.5 Hendry, however, holds that a practice one finds rational to involve oneself in is different from being motivated to actually engage in the practice. The explanatory indifference may find merit but not the motivational indifference. It can happen that the explanatory indifference of realism and instrumentalism may also bring about motivational indifference. There are corresponding realist and instrumentalist reconstructions to the realist and instrumentalist explanations. Fine’s metatheorem, however, does not afford an instrumentalist explanation for every phenomenon, only for those that are not realist-laden. Realist-laden here means having beliefs and inferences available only to the realist. Even if the instrumentalists do not have the inclination to recognize such realist-laden phenomena, they can still acknowledge realist-laden practices. Though instrumentalists may find merit in the explanatory indifference, they do not need to accept the motivational indifference. The difference between the explanatory and motivational types of indifference further gives credence to the irreconcilability of the realist and instrumental accounts of science. The efforts to find a working compromise between the two epistemic stances do not result in a coherent and consistent outlook that satisfies both sides of the debate. Neither does the collapse of scientific realism into instrumentalism or vice-versa hold merit. There can be a choice of one over the other and this is rooted in the human person’s hankering and hungering for a truth that one can really hold on to and stick one’s neck out for. The reality that science is a continuously evolving field does not make belief and acceptance of theoretical entities an exercise in futility. Theories and their posited unobservables may later be proven false but we are not wrong in positing them. Sticking only to the observables of the instrumentalists lets us miss a great part of reality. Argument from Psychological Difference (APD) The lack of motivational indifference established in the previous section points to an integral facet of the human person as a psychological being that operates mentally and intellectually as a function of awareness, feeling, or motivation. Cognitions and affect color our decisions and action. Cognition refers to conscious and analytical evaluation of a situation. Affect concerns emotions and feelings. APD contends that such psychological factors come into play in the evaluation of a framework. Material content is not sufficient basis from which a philosophical stance is taken. Even if there 5 Arthur Fine, “Unnatural Attitudes,” 154. © 2020 Vida Mia S. Valverde https://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_26/valverde_june2020.pdf ISSN 1908-7330 182 ARGUMENT FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE may be explanatory indifference between instrumentalism and scientific realism, motivational indifference does not necessarily follow because the human person is driven by different psychological factors that are attractive to her sense of self as a being in the world. There are psychological differences upon which she tackles and takes certain stances. Instrumentalism and scientific realism may both provide rational frameworks from which to understand phenomena. It would just as be perfectly reasonable to be a scientific realist or an instrumentalist in order to apprehend and comprehend the world. There are, however, psychological underpinnings that favor one framework over the other. A scientific realist has a different psychological impetus from that of an instrumentalist. Knowing that there is an underlying reality and existence to be uncovered, the scientific realist is more compelled than the instrumentalist to pursue it to its brute core. If instrumentalism were right, it would be appropriate for the scientist to be complacent about his theory as long as it was working on the surface.6 The atheistic instrumentalist does not have an underlying reality that one can stick out one’s neck for. The APD affirms the strength of scientific realism over instrumentalism because it supports a holistic reality that takes into consideration how the human person acts and decides given her place in the larger scheme of things. This argument takes into consideration the human person’s recognition
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